Next the foyer. Neeley stepped into the large open area at the bottom of the double staircase and froze. Her eyes were riveted on a small plastic box in the far corner of the ceiling, pointed at the front door. She slowly looked up and saw a similar box in the corner above her, pointing in the same direction as the other. Neeley slid her feet back and re-entered the dining room. Infra-red sensors. That wasn't good, but not unexpected. She was prepared for the possibility. Neeley considered and made a tactical decision. The foyer wasn't that important and the mikes she had planned for the den ought to pick up conversation there unless they were masked by a TV or other noise emitter in a closer location.
Neeley turned and went around the back of the dual staircase to the den. She checked that out. No sensors there. If there were more IR's than those two out front they would logically be near the master bedroom. On the way across the den, Neeley pressed another bug into the flue of the fireplace.
She paused at the short hall leading between the master bath and a room off to the right. The main bedroom was ahead. Lurking above the door to that room was another IR sensor. Unlike the foyer, this one would have to be dealt with. The master bedroom couldn't be ignored.
Neeley slid her backpack off and pulled out something that looked like a small hand-held searchlight. She plugged it into a wall socket and flipped the switch to on. Nothing apparent happened, but Neeley knew that the bulb was throwing out intense infrared light, enough to blanket any movement she might make. She'd been half-afraid that simply turning on the emitter would trip the alarm, but had taken the chance. The sensor worked off of movement and variation. The solid beam from her light changed the level of IR to one that allowed her to move freely. The electronic engineer in desperate need of money who had sold it to Gant had assured him that it would work on most home IR alarm systems.
All this gear was Gant's. He had taught her how to use it and it was part of his legacy to her. Some men left insurance policies and mutual funds, Gant had left her the tools of breaking and entering along with assorted weapons. More importantly, Gant had left her with knowledge and experience.
Leaving the light in place, she crossed the hall and entered the master bedroom. This was the only room she had not been able to see from the outside. Neeley stared at the massive four poster bed against the far wall for a minute. The bed was made perfectly. Neeley bet that if she checked, the top sheet was upside down so the flowers would be right side up at the blanket fold. Her grandmother in France had taught her to make a bed like that and she imagined that Hannah had been taught the same.
Neeley moved to the nightstand and bugged the phone. That one would be good for both the phone and the room. All the bugs were voice activated so their batteries ought to work for at least two weeks given Hannah was alone. Neeley sincerely hoped it would take less than that to find John Masterson. Neeley had gloves on and the bugs were all sterile, so even if one was found, they couldn't be traced to her. Not that anyone could make anything sensible out of her fingerprints, Neeley thought with a bitter smile. That would certainly cause the police some consternation if they ever got a good print from her and ran it through their computers. Better not to ever have that little situation come up at all had been Gant's advice.
Neeley pulled a Polaroid out of her backpack and took a picture of the room. She tossed the developing film onto the bed. She then began to search. Every drawer she opened, she checked first to make sure there were no tell-tales to indicate it had been opened, such as a piece of hair taped across the bottom. She also took a picture of each as soon as it was open so that everything could be put back into place exactly as it had been left. The bedroom yielded no information about where John might possibly have gone. Using the Polaroids she returned the room and drawers to their original state.
Neeley retraced her steps out of the bedroom, down the hall and recovered the IR light. She had decided last night not to do the upstairs. She'd yet to see Hannah go up there.
Neeley went into the room that had obviously been John's den. She found the map in the back of the file drawer with the two red lines on it, but knew, as Hannah had, that no such pipelines had been built. Still she slid it into her backpack. The computer refused to allow her access as she didn’t have the password. Neeley decided her time was up.
Neeley scanned the rear of the house to the wood line before stepping out. All clear. She closed the door, relocked it and retrieved the special pliers. She quickly sprinted across the backyard and disappeared into the wood line about twenty feet in, near a tree she had scouted earlier. She pulled a square box, about six inches cubed, from the backpack.
Neeley climbed the tree until she was twenty feet above the ground. She taped the box in the crux of a branch, making sure it was secure. Then she pulled a spool of very thin wire from the top of the box and pinned the end to another branch about six feet above, leaving the exposed antenna hanging free. She flicked the box on and shimmied back down the tree. She knew it was chancy to leave it unattended, but she had no choice. There were too many things to do. She felt it was reasonably secure above the ground. The odds that someone would look up in that particular tree were slim.
Hannah's house taken care of, Neeley headed back to the truck.
Hannah found a parking space despite it being Westport’s busiest time of the day. The complex consisted of various groupings of buildings — shops, office buildings and two Sheraton Hotels. As she made her way toward the building that housed Jenkins, Hannah suddenly realized she’d been here to see another doctor once — to have her wisdom teeth removed. That had been a bad experience; she remembered as she entered the lobby and walked to the elevator.
For some reason that memory brought to mind another one: her miscarriage, an ordeal she had believed at the time she would never recover from, if she ever had.
Standing alone in the elevator, Hannah was overwhelmed with the urge to cry. She held it in until she was afraid the pain in her chest would explode, sending fragments of her helter-skelter in the confined space. Finally, despite her efforts, it escaped.
That was the way Hannah entered Dr. Jenkins office, sobbing silently for a life lived uselessly and, more importantly, the one never lived at all.
The receptionist didn’t seem to think Hannah’s state unusual at all and simply waved her through to a partially opened door like a flagman on the highway trying to prevent a pile-up on her section of the road.
Hannah came to a stop just inside the door. She remembered being surprised the first time she’d met Jenkins that he didn’t look a thing like she had imagined from his voice. Jenkins was young and small, very inoffensive looking. The only immediate acknowledgement he made of her presence was to hand her a Kleenex and shut the door behind her.
As soon as they were both seated, he spoke. “You mentioned something about having problems with John?”
Right to the matter. Hannah liked that. It almost made up for his brief advice on the phone to follow her routine that had not worked well. She closed her eyes and thought for a moment how easy it would be to just sit here and have that voice explain everything. To tell all her secrets and then have them interpreted and fed back in a way she could handle. She’d told Jenkins a lot about herself over the last several years, but his feedback had been minimal. Since her life had been on a reasonably pleasant cruise control, Hannah had had no desire to press him for anything.
“He’s gone. I assume I drove him away.”